Wristbands for the Carnival

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How to address Young Modern Performers in bars and clubs

Background

This recipe will give you an example of how to include development education in a leisure time environment such as a bar or a discotheque. It may give you ideas on how to adapt items that are interesting enough to get noticed by people while they are out in the evening. You can think of everything that makes sense in a bar, club or discotheque. This can be a beermat, napkin, cocktail decoration, stickers on toilets, or light installations in a corner of a club. Everything that fits to night life and could carry information on global development as well.

Young Modern Performers (YMPs) are very busy people during the day, but after work they like to go somewhere to relax and have some fun, sometimes just for a drink with colleagues from work or for some informal business meeting. So it is great opportunity to reach them on these occasions.

In our case we chose to address YMPs in a trendy club with silicone wristbands. Silicone wristbands are very popular among many YMPs, both men and women. Wearing such wristbands is actually something more than just a bracelet. Usually it means that you identify with something and support the message, idea, campaign, etc. We thought that this kind of gadget would be a good way to promote the fair trade idea. It is their free time, so we didn’t want to interrupt their fun in an aggressive way, but just to grab their interest in the topic. We wanted to give them something that they can take home. We thought that silicone wristbands would be the best gadget.

We did this action during carnival in our town of Krakow, Poland. Carnival is a special time when people want to go somewhere and have some fun. In clubs and pubs there are special carnival parties - costume parties, concerts, and discos. In the center of city you can meet a lot of people going to dance and meeting up with friends. Among them there are also many YMPs.